“Harriet and her brother,” she reasoned, “don’t realize what is before them.  She would bluster and be rude; he would be pleasant and take it as a joke.  Both of them—­even if they offered money—­would fail.  But I begin to understand the man’s nature; he does not love the child, but he will be touchy about it—­and that is quite as bad for us.  He’s charming, but he’s no fool; he conquered me last year; he conquered Mr. Herriton yesterday, and if I am not careful he will conquer us all today, and the baby will grow up in Monteriano.  He is terribly strong; Lilia found that out, but only I remember it now.”

This attempt, and this justification of it, were the results of the long and restless night.  Miss Abbott had come to believe that she alone could do battle with Gino, because she alone understood him; and she had put this, as nicely as she could, in a note which she had left for Philip.  It distressed her to write such a note, partly because her education inclined her to reverence the male, partly because she had got to like Philip a good deal after their last strange interview.  His pettiness would be dispersed, and as for his “unconventionality,” which was so much gossiped about at Sawston, she began to see that it did not differ greatly from certain familiar notions of her own.  If only he would forgive her for what she was doing now, there might perhaps be before them a long and profitable friendship.  But she must succeed.  No one would forgive her if she did not succeed.  She prepared to do battle with the powers of evil.

The voice of her adversary was heard at last, singing fearlessly from his expanded lungs, like a professional.  Herein he differed from Englishmen, who always have a little feeling against music, and sing only from the throat, apologetically.  He padded upstairs, and looked in at the open door of the reception-room without seeing her.  Her heart leapt and her throat was dry when he turned away and passed, still singing, into the room opposite.  It is alarming not to be seen.

He had left the door of this room open, and she could see into it, right across the landing.  It was in a shocking mess.  Food, bedclothes, patent-leather boots, dirty plates, and knives lay strewn over a large table and on the floor.  But it was the mess that comes of life, not of desolation.  It was preferable to the charnel-chamber in which she was standing now, and the light in it was soft and large, as from some gracious, noble opening.

He stopped singing, and cried “Where is Perfetta?”

His back was turned, and he was lighting a cigar.  He was not speaking to Miss Abbott.  He could not even be expecting her.  The vista of the landing and the two open doors made him both remote and significant, like an actor on the stage, intimate and unapproachable at the same time.  She could no more call out to him than if he was Hamlet.

“You know!” he continued, “but you will not tell me.  Exactly like you.”  He reclined on the table and blew a fat smoke-ring.  “And why won’t you tell me the numbers?  I have dreamt of a red hen—­that is two hundred and five, and a friend unexpected—­he means eighty-two.  But I try for the Terno this week.  So tell me another number.”